We Started Nothing

1	Great DJ 3:23
2	That's Not My Name 5:11
3	Fruit Machine 2:54
4	Traffic Light 2:59
5	Shut Up and Let Me Go 2:52
6	Keep Your Head 3:23
7	Be the One 2:58
8	We Walk 4:04
9	Impacilla Carpisung 3:41
10	We Started Nothing 6:22

Barnes & Noble

Don’t hold their iPod commercial against them. While “Shut Up and Let Me Go” launched this Salford twosome into the stratosphere, there’s more to the Ting Tings than pirouetting silhouettes. “Shut Up” leans heavily on a ‘70s disco groove filtered through Franz Ferdinand, and on the face of it, it’s atypical of the band’s sound. The bulk of We Started Nothing is almost skeletal pop, rooted in heavy beats and percussion (Jules De Martino is the drummer; Katie White is the singer and guitarist; both hit samplers with a spare hand, stick, or foot), and simple melody lines on guitar or keyboard. But as Prince sagely observed, there is joy in repetition. The Ting Tings’ essentialist songwriting makes no bones about repeating the chorus 50 times (on the addictive “That’s Not My Name”) or riding the beat like a DJ would mine a break. In the pair’s punky attack and 808-style beats is a Mancunian ethic of rhythm über alles – as the set opener, “Great DJ,” reminds you 50 times, it’s “the drums…the drums…the drums...the drums.” Glimpses in their sound of New Order, Siouxsie Sioux, and Bow Wow Wow might give the Ting Tings some courant retro-cachet, but White and De Martino seem old enough to have witnessed such things firsthand, or at least filtered through an older sibling. Is it too much to see authenticity in a flavor-of-the-month pop band? Perhaps. But great summer anthems like these can make you believe any-ting’s possible. Mark Schwartz

All Music Guide

On the Ting Tings' debut album, We Started Nothing, the duo's new wave-worshiping mix of dance and indie pop -- which grafts chugging guitar and bashed drums onto looping structures and proudly plastic keyboards -- is polished, but far from polite. Singer/guitarist Katie White's snotty, singsong vocal delivery and flat rhymes are part cheerleader, part playground chant, and a tiny bit of punk snarl; "That's Not My Name," on which White sneers "Are you calling me darling? Are you calling me bird?," even sounds a little like riot grrrl sloganeering filtered through a decade's worth of pop. Even when White sings more melodically, as on "Traffic Light" and "We Walk," the energy, attitude, and repetition can be grating, even if you're tapping your foot to the songs. However, the Ting Tings manage to stay on the catchy side with "Fruit Machine," a Lily Allen-ish bit of cheeky bordering on vindictive pop, and on "Keep Your Head" and "Be the One," which tone down the Ting Tings' energy to more manageable but still lively levels. "Great DJ" and "Shut Up and Let Me Go" (which sounds like a Yeah Yeah Yeahs parody/tribute) are also standouts, and it's no surprise they've been used in commercials -- they're so short and memorable, they feel like jingles waiting for products to endorse. Since they've got a real knack for writing songs that stick in your head whether you want them to or not, the Ting Tings' songs are fun in very small doses. Heather Phares